![]() ![]() In antiquity, to visit the ziggurat at Ur was to seek both spiritual and physical nourishment.Ĭlearly the most important part of the ziggurat at Ur was the Nanna temple at its top, but this, unfortunately, has not survived. As the Ziggurat supported the temple of the patron god of the city of Ur, it is likely that it was the place where the citizens of Ur would bring agricultural surplus and where they would go to receive their regular food allotments. The structure would have been the highest point in the city by far and, like the spire of a medieval cathedral, would have been visible for miles around, a focal point for travelers and the pious alike. The Ziggurat at Ur and the temple on its top were built around 2100 BCE by the king Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur for the moon goddess Nanna, the divine patron of the city state. Small excavations occurred at the site around the turn of the twentieth century, and in the 1920s Sir Leonard Woolley, in a joint project with the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia and the British Museum in London, revealed the monument in its entirety.įigure 3. One of the largest and best-preserved ziggurats of Mesopotamia is the great Ziggurat at Ur. Ziggurats are found scattered around what is today Iraq and Iran, and stand as an imposing testament to the power and skill of the ancient culture that produced them. However, unlike Egyptian pyramids, the exterior of Ziggurats were not smooth but tiered to accommodate the work which took place at the structure as well as the administrative oversight and religious rituals essential to Ancient Near Eastern cities. Like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, an ancient Near Eastern ziggurat has four sides and rises up to the realm of the gods. The ziggurat is the most distinctive architectural invention of the Ancient Near East. 2100 BCE mud brick and baked brick, Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq (largely reconstructed) ![]()
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